If that were true, you wouldn’t be perturbed by the negative impact of conspicuous consumption, such as the ethical issues arising from Africa’s bloody diamond trade (reported in FORTUNE’s “Diamonds Aren’t Forever“, 11 December 2006).
But if you are aware of the dire living conditions of diamond miners in Sierra Leone (who earn a daily stipend of only 7 cents), would you have wondered under what circumstances those gems were dug? Or would you have turned a blind eye to the darker side of life?
As Mordechai Rapaport of the Rapaport Group succinctly puts it, “when a guy gives a woman a diamond and someone was killed for it, it is not worth anything.”
Similarly, you can argue that since you are unaware of the PAP government’s systematic abuse of power, you cannot be faulted for voting them in election after election.
But that argument holds no water because now you know. Unless you refuse to see the darker side of life in Singapore.
